Understanding emotional language through events and words in people with Williams syndrome

Previous studies have mainly examined emotion recognition through face processing in individuals with Williams syndrome (WS). Contextual integration is an automatic and basic comprehension ability emerged from distinct modalities. This ability requires sensation to global configuration and local elements. However, neurodevelopmental disorders are characterized by local-focusing and global-ignoring in visuospatial perception. This causes cognitive atypicality as compared to typical development, including atypical face processing and emotion recognition. These impairments might result in deficits in theory of mind and social cognition. People with WS demonstrate impaired false-belief attribution, which was reported to be improved with emotional cues. Yet, no previous study has examined knowledge of emotional language in people with WS, which might be one of the factors affecting the development of the theory of mind in people with WS. In the present study, we examined knowledge of emotional language in people with WS by testing three emotions: positive, negative, and neutral. Participants were asked to press buttons indexing emotions in reaction to auditory targets. In the emotional event study, people with WS demonstrated responses to positive events in the normal range, delayed responses to negative events, and deviant responses to neutral events. In the emotion word study, people with WS showed the lowest accuracy and longest reaction times for neutral words. These findings indicated asymmetrical and atypical knowledge of emotional language in people with WS, confirming that knowledge of emotional expressions influences the development of the theory of mind and social cognition.